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Saturday, January 20, 2018

World of Warcraft The New Patch

Level Scaling: I didn't think I'd appreciate it through the entire world, but it's fine. I'm going to be happy to not outlevel every area so fast, at all levels.

What I love is skipping the Cataclysm areas Hyjal, Vashj'ir and Deepholm. I've been through Hyjal so many times because the other two are just painful. I had one single character make it all the way through Vashj'ir and vowed never to send another. I skipped a level 83 Priest and a level 80 Rogue straight to Pandaria. Thank you thank you thank you Blizzard!

A Hunter at level 72 who was already in Northrend could choose between there and Outland. They're both ok, but I've always run right past most of their content via dungeons. The Great Thing here was that I could choose random dungeons for either Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King. I love Burning Crusade dungeons.

That said, my level 83 Shadow Priest was in Throne of Tides last week and it was good, I felt like she contributed really well to the group. Yesterday, the same character in Throne of Tides was with a group that wiped over and over. She felt like she had no dps at all.

My Hunter today in Sethekk Halls was also in a recurringly dead group. Then again, the tank pulled the whole room. Over and over.

Bad luck, or have they been made tougher? I'll run others of other classes and levels too, and we shall see.

9 comments:

Most likely people aren't used to Sethekk Halls the way you're supposed to play it at level. I remember in Cata that doing Sethekk runs at level --and without heirlooms-- is pretty lethal. You have to pull piecemeal, or you'll regret it in much the same way that you regret watching the tank pull the whole room. What might be really nasty would be some of the BC reservoir instances, like Steamvault.

I'm planning on posting something on this later today or tomorrow. I logged my free account on yesterday and ran around a little - you can see the changes even at level 20. I also spent some time reading the forums to see the reaction, which was mixed. There seems to be a belief that as well as the level scaling the hit points of open world mobs have been increased significantly and dungeon XP has been reduced. I haven't seen documentary evidence of that but I haven't looked for it very hard yet.

I think it is always a mistake to make changes like this non-optional. They could have used a solution that allowed both playstyles to co-exist. This way they can only satisfy one faction.

I’ll be interested in what you have to say, as always. I have not been reading the forums, which was a goal for this year. I was checking with some characters in their 70s and 80s and a few under 10. Some may be class too. My 72 Hunter was fine in the dungeon and in Northrend proper but the tank in the dungeon wasn’t. My 83 Priest felt powerless, even in the opening Pandaria area. My 80 Assassin Rogue was fine in PandariaBut I didn’t get a chance to send her into a dungeon. I’ll play characters across classes and levels and see what I think. And hop on those forums. I am ok with the dungeons being more challenging.

I spent some time reading the forums. What I see is what happens every time there are significant changes to the game. “Blizzard—you’re going to lose subscriptions.” “Blizzard, I told my friend who hasn’t played in five years who was going to come back how bad the changes are and they’re done with you.” “I won’t be able to play or level alts anymore”. What I’d like to see are discussions of particular aspects of the changes and how they might be tweaked if needed to smooth gameplay. Blizzard always tweaks everything to death, so helping them figure what is too much or too little would be a better way to go than essentially Sabre rattling.

Ah, the forums. The single biggest reason why Wildstar exists, and the everliving proof that developing strictly by the forums doesn't help.

I certainly hope that Blizz has a bunch of people that they can reach out to get honest feedback from, because --like you said-- it would be nice if the forums actually provided more constructive feedback than "this sucks".

I'm pretty sure that in some future game there will be a "virtual" forum set up in-game which will be populated by "this game sucks" internally generated posts as an inside joke for the game.

Take it a step further and name your game This Game Sucks. Then implement every unpopular game mechanic you can fit into the game world. Let the Love Fly!I've been reading forums for a really long time. I'd hope devs look at a few things when taking in the comments, suggestions, and criticisms: Does the person actively play the game. Do they play a particular class that they can be somewhat of a specialist in? Do they provide feedback on the forums that poses both a problem and a solution?Are they active in testing the game when the opportunity arises? Do they provide feedback on test forums? You want people who know and love the game, and who can give you can use. It seems simple.